Grover Cleveland

Stephen Grover Cleveland (18 March 1837-24 June 1908) was President of the United States from 4 March 1885 to 4 March 1889 (succeeding Chester A. Arthur and preceding Benjamin Harrison) and from 4 March 1893 to 4 March 1897 (succeeding Harrison and preceding William McKinley). He previously served as Governor of New York (D) from 1 January 1883 to 6 January 1885, succeeding Alonzo B. Cornell and preceding David B. Hill. Along with Woodrow Wilson, he was one of only two Democrats to serve as President during the period of Republican domination from 1861 to 1933.

Biography
Stephen Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, Essex County, New Jersey in 1837, a distant relative of General Moses Cleaveland, the namesake of the city of Cleveland, Ohio. In 1850, the family moved to Clinton, Oneida County, New York, and Cleveland was educated in Fayetteville. He started his own law practice in 1862 and paid for a Polish immigrant to serve in the US Army in his place during the American Civil War. From 1871 to 1873, he served as Sheriff of Erie County, and he returned to his law practice before serving as Mayor of Buffalo in 1882, fighting against the entrenched interests of both Democratic and Republican machines. From 1883 to 1885, he served as Governor of New York, and he fought against Tammany Hall while securing the support of Theodore Roosevelt and other reform-minded Republicans.

Presidency
In 1884, Cleveland became the Democratic presidential nominee, defeating Republican nominee James G. Blaine with 219 electoral votes to Blaine's 182; Cleveland had the support of reformist "Mugwumps" within the Republican Party who saw Blaine as corrupt. Cleveland became the leader of the Bourbon Democrats, who  opposed high tariffs, Free Silver, inflation, imperialism, and subsidies, campaigning for political reform and fiscal conservatism. Cleveland's first term was marked by neutrality in foreign policy, as well as by the exclusion of Chinese immigrants. In 1888, he lost re-election to Benjamin Harrison, despite winning the popular vote. In 1892, however, he was re-elected to the presidency. He was unable to reverse the Panic of 1893, leading to a Republican landslide in 1894 and for the agrarian and silverite seizure of his party in 1896. In 1894, he angered the labor union movement by intervening in the Pullman strike, and his support for the gold standard alienated the silverite wing of the party. He left office in 1897, and he died in Princeton in 1908 at the age of 71.